WASHINGTON — Blue Origin has added a fourth customer to its launch manifest for the still-in-development New Glenn rocket. “We are honored to have SKY Perfect JSAT as a customer for an early New Glenn launch,” Bob Smith, Blue Origin’s chief executive, told SpaceNews. “They are the biggest commercial satellite operator in Asia and highly respected. The whole team at Blue thanks SKY Perfect JSAT for placing its trust in us to take them to orbit.” The Jeff Bezos-owned company also announced March 12 that mu Space, a Thai startup,…

MOUNTAIN VIEW, California – SpaceX customers should not expect deep discounts when they opt to launch satellites on previously flown boosters instead of new ones, at least not initially, said Hans Koenigsmann, vice president of build and flight reliability for Hawthorne, California-based SpaceX. Although SpaceX intends to decrease launch costs over time, it will not immediately offer significant discounts on preflown boosters while it recovers its investment in the technology it is developing to make rockets reusable, including its “Navy” of drone ships and telemetry boats, Koenigsmann said Feb. 6 at…

WASHINGTON — Spanish rocket startup PLD Space received 2 million euros ($2.4 million) from a European Commission grant program to further the development of a pair of launchers designed for small satellites. The EC Horizon 2020 funds bring the Elche, Spain-based startup to more than 9 million euro raised to build the Arion 1 sounding rocket and the Arion 2 orbital rocket. PLD Space co-founder and chief business officer Raúl Verdú said in a Jan. 10 statement that the company anticipates “the closing of an A2 investment round of 8…

WASHINGTON — Reusable rocketry in Europe took a step forward last year with a funding boost for Prometheus, a program meant to develop a reusable engine manufacturable at one-tenth the cost of the Ariane 5’s first-stage liquid engine. A parallel effort dubbed Callisto could test a European ability to launch, return and refly a rocket from the Guiana Space Centre in South America. The French and German space agencies (CNES and DLR, respectively) have for the past two years collaborated on a scaled-down rocket that would allow Europe to practice different…

WASHINGTON — SpaceNews established the Awards for Excellence & Innovation to honor the well-known champions and the unsung heroes shaping the global space industry. We endeavored to celebrate headline-grabbing breakthroughs as well as outside-the-limelight innovations. We made our selections after an open nomination process that concluded with a reader poll. The winners listed below were honored during an awards luncheon held Dec. 19 at the City Club of Washington. The luncheon was organized in partnership with the Washington Space Business Roundtable. A special thanks to Cobham for sponsoring this year’s SpaceNews awards.…

SpaceX Falcon 9 More NASA TV SpaceX took a big step by showcasing its claim that reusable rockets are the future of space flight. The two-stage Falcon 9 lifted off from Cape Canaveral and it featured not only a reused booster, but a reused Dragon capsule that’s already visited the International Space Station (ISS) a few months ago. What’s more, NASA may have gotten a discount on the flight. Elon Musk has long touted the re-usability concept for his SpaceX program, and it kicked into high gear in 2017. Back…

SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell — a finalist for SpaceNews’ Corporate Executive of the Year award — previews 2018 in an exclusive interview . WASHINGTON — SpaceX, now on track to more than double its personal best for launches conducted in a single year, wants to further accelerate its launch pace in 2018 by perhaps 10 or more missions. “We will increase our cadence next year about 50 percent,” Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX president and COO, told SpaceNews in an interview last week. “We’ll fly more next year than this…

WALLOPS ISLAND, Va. — NASA may decide to allow SpaceX to use a previously-flown Falcon 9 first stage on the next Dragon mission to the International Space Station, the latest sign that SpaceX’s reusability efforts are winning broader acceptance in the market. During a press conference at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility here Nov. 10 about the launch of a Cygnus cargo mission to the ISS, a NASA manager said the agency would likely approve the use of a reused booster on that mission, designated SpX-13, assuming it clears an upcoming…

WASHINGTON — The chief executive of United Launch Alliance said Nov. 9 that he doesn’t feel any urgency to select a main engine for his company’s next-generation Vulcan rocket, despite an impending deadline for an Air Force launch competition. During a question-and-answer session after his speech at a Washington Space Business Roundtable luncheon, Bruno declined to give an update on the competition between the BE-4 engine from Blue Origin and the AR1 from Aerojet Rocketdyne to power the first stage of the Vulcan. ULA has long indicted its preferred choice…

BREMEN, Germany — Ariane 5 is one of the world’s most reliable launcher but its makers aren’t resting on their laurels. Following the 2015 creation of Airbus Safran Launchers, a joint venture between the two main contributors to the European rocket program, the company renamed itself to ArianeGroup and embarked on a journey through the quickly changing space industry landscape. ArianeGroup Chief Financial Officer Pierre Godart told SpaceNews at Space Tech Expo Bremen that lean management, as well as increased vertical integration, is the main drivers behind improving efficiency and…